


Beyond Skyline

by CryptidBae



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Akande Ogundimu, Alien Character(s), Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Flora & Fauna, Alien Mythology/Religion, Alien/Human Relationships, Augmentations, Cyborg Lúcio Correia Dos Santos, Deaf Character, Denial of Feelings, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Non-Human Humanoid Society, Upgrades, temporary major character death, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-06-30 06:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15746520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryptidBae/pseuds/CryptidBae
Summary: The investigations taking place at the Skyline colony in Mars had been an incredibly huge step ahead for human knowledge. Discovering humans were not alone in the universe was not part of the investigation.





	1. When is a door not a door?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluebells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/gifts).



Lúcio remembered a time of his life in which he thought that whenever he went on a car trip, the moon would follow him.

He learned years later that it was something all kids did at some point in their lives. But Lúcio was around fourteen years old at that time, an age in which he should have stopped doing that, or at least that was what he had been told.

Every time he got on the car, Lúcio would turn off his hearing aids and just stare up at the moon, almost not blinking, until either his mother, father or siblings would snap him out of it to talk to him or complain about how him staring at the sky so intently was creepy.

"Why do you stare at the moon?" One of his siblings had asked him once.

Lúcio didn't have an answer at that time, and he didn't have an answer now either when his crewmate asked a pretty similar question.

"Why do you stare at space like that?"

Looking up at Zarya, Lúcio tried to think about an answer that he could give her. But he could not think about any good ones, which lead to Lúcio just shrugging and turning his attention back to the barren landscape of Mars.

The moon was overrated. Scientists had gotten there when Lúcio was a baby, there was nothing new to see at the Horizon colony. But in the Skyline colony located on Mars? With its practically all cyborg crew? Lúcio was sure there was a lot to see there, he had been sure since the last week, when he took off his hearing device and whispers flooded his mind.

'An error in my upgrades,' he had thought. Something he was not supposed to hear. But going to Ana for help would mean that the whispering would stop, and Lúcio was too curious about the low voice that would whisper numbers from one to twenty-six. Numbers Lúcio would write down to realize they were actually hidden messages.

The night before the incident had not been any different. He sat on his bed at 2 am, Earth time, writing down the numbers that he heard in the receptor and amplifier of his hearing aid even when the rest of the device was not connected to it.

The messages varied in language, Lúcio had struggled more than once to turn the numbers into letters and then have to translate whatever it said because the message was in Russian, Spanish, French, or worse.

That night, unfortunately, all messages had been in English. A language Lúcio knew how to speak fluently. There was no stopping him from sating his curiosity.

"Must send troops."

"Must send troops where?" Lúcio huffed, half just speaking to himself, half hoping that whoever was talking on that channel would answer his question.

"Must locate colony."

Was Lúcio going to jail for accidentally listening in into the Pentagon comms' channel? Or would he be praised for discovering a terrorist cell? He was not sure, and he didn't want to be either. It was not like Lúcio was planning on going back to Earth any time soon to find out. He had nothing to go back to.

"Athena," he called, knowing that at least the AI would listen to him. "Can you connect me to an external comms channel?"

The screen above his door lit up, Athena knew he could not hear her and was ready to communicate with written messages. "I can try," appeared in blue letters for a minute before the screen turned off.

"Good, let's try."

Reaching behind his bed, Lúcio pulled at a wire that was connected to the wall and to Athena herself. Lúcio brought the end of the wire to his temple, wincing at the white noise that filled his head when he connected it.

The screen lit up again. "Tracking external signal… signal tracked. Want me to connect you?"

"Yes," Lúcio said, chewing his lip in excitement. "Decode everything that is said from numeral code to English speech too, please."

"Terrans in Terra Nova, Terrans in the natural satellite," was the next message, this time decoded by Athena and shown on the screen.

Lúcio was confused. He knew that Earth was called Terra or a variation of the Latin word in many modern languages. But calling it Terra Nova and calling humans Terrans was something Lúcio had never heard before.

"Terrans in Terra Nova, Terrans in the natural satellite," Lúcio mocked. "You guys are forgetting Mars, it is way more interesting here than at the moon if you ask me."

This time, the voice in the channel was not the one Lúcio was used to, but Athena's, coding what Lúcio had just said word by word.

"Wait, no!"

When Athena didn't stop, Lúcio ripped off the wire connected to his head. Regretting it the second a spark of electricity shot from his temple to the rest of his head, making him knock stuff off his bed and curse as he made pressure on his temples with the heels of his hands to try and get rid of the pain.

"Athena, what the hell was that?" Lúcio huffed. "I know you have not been feeling well lately, but don't do that to me."

Lúcio was not supposed to make contact with whoever he had been listening in.

* * *

 

Athena had picked the worst time to stop functioning.

It wasn't really the AI’s fault. Lúcio knew that. But not blaming Athena would mean accepting that someone unknown to the AI had entered the facility and had hacked Athena after she activated the alarms.

It would not be so hard to accept if it wasn't because one, Athena was what people called a God Program, and she was supposed to be impossible to hack, and two, the Skyline Colony was in Mars, and it wasn't like there was any kind of human-made weaponry that could reach that distance. Even if there was, the project had been funded by the UN with money from the first world countries, which were the only ones who might have that kind of weaponry.

Sure, there was always conflict between nations. But Lúcio would bet that no country would attack the base. That would be a waste of money from said country, and a declaration of war considering that the Colony had hired people from everywhere.

Now everyone was evacuating the facility, running through the halls and pushing each other in their attempts to get to the escape capsules as soon as possible. Lúcio was on the same page, the only difference was that he was doing his best to dodge as many people as possible, which was slowing him down.

Maybe if Lúcio had been in a rush like everyone else, he wouldn't have seen the Oladele’s at their room’s door, with their eleven years old daughter grasping the doorway as if her life depended on it.

“We have to go!” The mother would say every few seconds, pulling at the back of her husband's pajama shirt while the man tried to get their daughter to let go.

“I'm not leaving without Gizmo!” The girl stated with a high pitched cry.

Bringing a dog to Mars had sounded like a good idea at first. The presence of a domestic animal helped the crew get used to their long stay away from home. Or at least that’s what everyone thought. Now that they had to evacuate and the Boston terrier was nowhere to be found, bringing a dog to Mars did not sound so wise.

“I will go look for him.” Lúcio smiled at the parents, then looked down at the girl. “Efi, right? Don't worry, I will find Gizmo.”

After a moment of hesitation, Efi nodded and let go of the doorway, hugging her mother tightly.

“Thank you, Mr. Dos Santos.”

Wishing that he had taken the time to learn the names of the little family that had joined the crew only a week ago so he could do more besides smiling and nodding, Lúcio started running on the opposite direction of everyone else.

Gizmo wasn't only Efi’s dog. In just one week he had become everyone's dog, and Lúcio knew the places were the dog usually was: The kitchen, the rooms, and the hydroponics room.

Efi had probably already turned the rooms upside down looking for the dog, so that left Lúcio with two theories about Gizmo’s whereabouts.

Two stations placed on completely opposite sides of the colony and almost no time. Lúcio didn't know what to do. If only Athena would have managed to awake the omnics from their charging stations too, Lúcio would feel safe, but it didn't seem to be the case.

Rushing past the internal communications room, Lúcio stopped abruptly and looked back, seeing the door was ajar.

That door was never even slightly open. The internal communications room was the closest thing to Athena's room, she connected everyone’s comms with herself and each other, that's how she could communicate with them, that and the security cameras and sensors that let her see everything. The door was never open because Athena didn't need doors and if someone needed to talk to her, they would just use the comms to address her from anywhere at Skyline.

“Something is not right.”

Ignoring all the alarms that were going off inside his head, Lúcio forced the door to slide open by pushing on it and entered the room. The console was the first thing that caught Lúcio's attention.

There was something pulsing, visibly slimy sliding into the comm system with movements that weren't erratic at all. In fact, judging the way that thing moved, its movements were calculated.

That thing was doing something to Athena and Lúcio was having more of it.

Making a face of pure disgust, Lúcio grabbed that thing and, after it started clinging to his hand, started pulling at it with all his strength. He had to use both hands to manage to yank whatever that was away from the console, and three it away the moment it started consciously clinging to his hand.

“Come on, Athena, we need you. Come back!” Lúcio begged to the air, hitting the keys on the keyboard out of impotence when the noise of light, rapid steps rushing through the hall made him look back.

Gizmo jumped over the thing Lúcio had tossed out and ran into the room like a soul escaping from Hell. The small dog was so fast that Lúcio failed in his attempt to catch him and instead watched Gizmo run and hide on a corner.

“Gizmo, come here boy,” Lúcio called, making kissy noises to try and convince the dog to get out of his hiding spot.

It didn't work. Lúcio had to move the boxes behind which Gizmo was hiding just for the dog to growl at him.

“Hey, we are friends. Why are you giving me attitude?” Lúcio reached for the dog. “Just let me pick you up and-”

Gizmo growled again. But this time Lúcio was close enough to realize that the dog wasn't growling at him, but at something behind Lúcio.

Making the worst mistake of his life to date, Lúcio stood abruptly and turned around. Almost instantly, Lúcio was grabbing by the shoulders and rammed against the wall.

The device around his ear broke into pieces when Lúcio's head hit the wall, some of those metallic pieces piercing through Lúcio's flesh. Disoriented by the impact, Lúcio felt a pair of hands holding his wrists, whoever his attacker was, they were too strong for Lúcio to fight them off.

The disorientation was replaced by confusion when the second pair of hands wrapped around Lúcio’s neck and squeezed hard.

Lucio's eyes went round. His sight becoming blurry but Lúcio still managed to see his attacker.

A human face, presumably masculine, with two small, strange, dark red colored markings where the eyebrows should be, and a third one right in the middle of the forehead. Just one attacker, yet there were four hands holding Lúcio.

Whoever this… Man? Creature? _Being_ was, they obviously weren't happy about how Lúcio was staring at their face.

The markings glowed a brighter red and the being’s angered expressing was the last thing Lúcio saw before his head was rammed against the wall over and over again until there was a cracking noise, as if someone had stepped on an eggshell. Lucio's vision turned white, then black, and then nothing.

* * *

 

The scream that had got stuck on Lúcio's throat while he was being strangled and slammed against the wall came out louder than intended to after a gasp just as loud when Lúcio's lungs filled with air once again. Lúcio sat abruptly, crying as he looked around.

The door slid open and a blonde woman walked in. Her hands went to Lúcio's shoulders in an attempt to get him to calm down, but the fact that the second pair of hands joined the one already squeezing his shoulders made Lúcio scream even louder. Almost not being able to hear himself screaming even though Lúcio knew he was doing so didn't help.

Lúcio fell from where he was lying in his attempt to push himself away from the four-armed woman. The painful way in which his ass hit the floor didn't stop him from pulling himself away until his back hit the wall.

The woman's mouth was moving, but her tone was so soft that Lúcio couldn't hear her. Lucio's hand went to the side of his head, feeling bandages where his hearing device should be.

That's when the memories of what happened hit him the hardest. He had been attacked by something- by _someone_ who, just like this woman, had four arms and markings.

Lúcio hugged his legs tightly, straight up screaming whenever the woman tried to move closer, and kept on screaming until she left, the door sliding shut behind her.

One glance around was enough for Lúcio to realize he was not at the colony. Lúcio knew the medical bay better than he knew the palm of his hand, and this was definitely not Skyline's medical bay.

Bracing himself on the wall, Lúcio stood up. His whole body shaking, but his legs seem to be competing to see which one could shake harder. It took Lúcio several minutes to be able to push himself away from the wall, holding onto the surgery table he had been lying on.

A board on the wall caught Lúcio's attention. The two extremely detailed X-rays stuck to it could work as something to fix his attention on, to anchor himself anxiety avoid having a panic attack. Both X-rays showed the same concussion, in which the skull was fractured on multiple parts like it was usual on concussions by impact, and a dark spot darkening the picture that indicated a serious internal bleeding.

His glance roamed over both pictures and Lúcio froze. He moved closer so fast he ended up stumbling, grabbing the X-ray that showed the profile.

On the X-rays, the shape the receptor and amplifier of his cochlear transplant could be seen, slightly covered by the dark spot that was an internal bleeding.

Dropping the image, Lúcio’s hand moved back to where the bandages covered a wound that, now that Lúcio paid attention to it, hurt like hell.

Yet Lúcio ignored the pain, moving the bandages out of the way and touching. Between the hair, there were stitches, they were scattered across the side of his head, where the hearing device had been smashed between the wall and Lucio's skull.

Letting the stitches be, Lúcio stared at the X-ray he hadn't grabbed. Those X-rays were his, that was Lucio's head, and that kind of concussion was fatal.

Lúcio was supposed to be dead.


	2. The Terran tries to escape

The blood on his clothes was impossible to hide and hard to explain.

Akande had never been so thankful of being the one in charge of the spaceship. Being in charge meant that a stern look or low growl was enough to make anyone who wanted to question him about what had happened leave as quickly as they regretted even thinking about questioning Akande. The only bad thing was that without anyone to question him, Akande had no choice but to question himself.

The Terran should be dead. Akande kept telling himself that. He should have left the Terran where he found him: dead in a puddle of their own blood. But now they were alive, in a coma, and in Akande's spaceship.

It was forbidden by law to interact with some species. Terrans were one of them, aggressive and unpredictable with each other and others. Because of that attitude, the council did not consider them ready to know that they were not the only intelligent beings in the universe.

Visiting the human planet or its natural satellite was illegal, it was also illegal to visit other planets in the Terrans' solar system if the Terrans were studying said planet.

What Akande could not understand was what were Terrans doing in Mars. According to the information that had been given to them, the Terran drones had been taken back to their planet after decades of finding notice but rocks and some remains of water that ended up drying. But no one had bothered to tell Akande that the reason Terrans had stopped playing with small devices was that they were building a colony on the red planet.

It was confirmed, Terrans were stupid. The planet in which they lived was already a death planet, full of flora and fauna that could kill them even accidentally. A colony on the moon had already been unwise of them, but settling down on Mars? A planet drier than their moon and farther away from their planet? Terrans' stupidity knew no limits.

The Terrans were a menace for themselves and for others. If it wasn't by how quick they reproduced, Akande was sure they would have gone extinct. Akande himself wouldn't have looked at the corpse twice if it had been his choice, there were enough living Terrans, they were a plague for their own solar system at that point. But Akande's kind was emphatic to extreme levels, and that empathy that characterized them forced Akande to get involved in something that clearly did not have to become his business, making him leave his team to go through the place while he carried the small, fragile Terran back to his spaceship.

Once in the medical wing, Akande left Ziegler in charge of the dead Terran. She had the technology needed to bring them back to life. Once that was done, Akande would interrogate them.

This time it wasn't Akande's specie's natural empathy making him keep the human alive, but curiosity. There were no protocols about what to do if you met a Terran outside of the illegal zone, the least Akande could do was try and add more information to the universal library. Akande's name would be in history books as the captain who made contact with Terrans before anyone else.

It had been two months since he found the Terran and Akande had not yet informed the council about his crew's discovery, and he didn't plan to yet, not until he had more information.

The door to his office slid open and Akande turned his chair to look at the cadet who had just walked in. The young man saluted him with both right arms and Akande raised an eyebrow, motioning for the cadet to speak.

"I assume you have a good reason to walk in unannounced."

"I do, captain Ogundimu," the cadet was visibly nervous. "The insurgents have been captured by our troops."

Rising from his seat, the markings on Akande's face that went from one cheek to the other glowed orange in satisfaction. If there was something that Akande hated more than being forced by his nature to go against his convictions, that was when others went against those convictions. Akande was the leader, and the least he expected from his crew was respect.

"Leave them in the cells," Akande sentenced. "And call their parents, let them know what they did. If they continue to be part of the crew or not will be decided by me."

"If I may say so, sir," the cadet began, the angry look aimed at him made him take a step back before he continued speaking. "They are young, stealing one of the smaller ships is not a serious felony, considering they kept the ship in one piece and-."

"You are forgetting that, given the evidence found on Mars, they could be the ones who attacked the colony."

"They are practically children!"

"Exactly!" Akande raised his voice more than the cadet, his marks glowing a darker shade of red. "They are young, they do not know how to act. Their lack of training could have caused one of them to react badly and to accidentally or not so accidentally kill a Terran."

As if summoned by the word Terran, doctor Ziegler rushed in. She was panting and visibly affected by something that had happened.

"They're awake," Angela spoke before Akande could ask what was going on. "The Terran, they are awake."

"And you left him alone?!"

Terrans' stupidity must be contagious because now his crew seemed to be becoming more incompetent than normal.

"If you want something done right, you must do it yourself."

Walking past the doctor and cadet, Akande did not care if they heard him say that. Their unwanted 'guest' would be fine as long as they stayed in their room. Terrans breathed oxygen and the spaceship 's ventilation system was programmed to filter carbon dioxide in all the installations but the one the Terran was into.

Knowing Angela, Akande was sure that she had not thought about locking the Terran in the medical wing. She was too kind to even consider locking someone in a room.

Her kindness proved to be a mistake when Akande opened the door and found the room was empty.

* * *

 

 

The white lights across the ceiling turning red warned Lúcio that an alarm had been activated. He started running faster, having no clue where he was going but being sure that stopping wasn't an option. Whoever those people were they were probably angry that Lúcio left the medical wing.

Lúcio was also sure that something was wrong. During his high school years, Lúcio was part of the hockey, soccer, and tracking team. He knew that he could spend an approximate of two hours running before he started feeling tired. But it had been less than ten minutes and Lúcio already felt like he would faint.

The dizziness wouldn't let him run as fast as Lúcio wanted to, so it wasn't long before Lúcio noticed he was being chased.

His short stature and capacity to give hard kicks were a blessing in moments like these. Every time someone got close enough to grab a hold of him, Lúcio would kick and bite his way out of their grip and put as much distance with his persecutors.

That was until two of them grabbed a hold of him at the same time, and Lúcio had eight arms holding at him. Too many arms holding him and Lúcio was not exactly feeling good to fight back.

He didn't kick nor bite any of them this time. Instead, Lúcio reached back and managed to steal something that looked like a pistol from one of them, it has odd lights and an even weirder design, but it had a trigger and a barrel, so Lúcio could make do.

Turning his whole body around, Lúcio wrapped his arm around one of his persecutors' neck pressed the barrel of the gun against their temple. The other one lets go of him almost instantly, rising their four hands.

Lúcio felt bad for the woman he was holding at gunpoint. She was short, even shorter than him, and she looked like she'd rather be anywhere but there. Lúcio would too, so he couldn't blame her.

Pulling the woman with him, Lúcio started walking away from the others, opening the first door he found and locking himself in there with the woman.

She started crying and Lúcio didn't have the heart to keep holding her at gunpoint. He let go and watched her quickly move to the corner further away from him, looking like a frightened deer.

"Listen," Lúcio started, not even knowing if she could understand him. "If I wanted to hurt anyone, I would have already. I just want to leave, okay?"

Lúcio could not hear just how weak and breathy his voice was, but he could feel just how hard it was to part his lips with every word. He also could feel his hand shaking around the gun. Lúcio wasn't a gunslinger, but he had a good pulse.

This woman must have been the nicest being in the whole spaceship because even thought Lúcio had been holding her at gunpoint moments ago, she started going through the cabinets until she found a chinstrap shaped gas mask and threw it at Lucio's feet before going back to the corner.

Picking it up, Lúcio was quick to wrap it around his chin, gasping for air as if he had just come out of being submerged in water.

"Thank you," Lúcio panted behind the mask.

He was quick to raise his hands when the woman started speaking. "I can't hear you," he said, signing what he was saying as well. His hands moved slowly, carefully, wanting his signing to be as clear as possible.

The way the woman glanced at the door multiple times made it clear that there was someone trying to force it open. He quickly stepped back, pointing the gun at the door and switching glances between the door and the woman he had basically taken hostage until he was standing beside her, one hand on her shoulder, just in case, and the other on the gun.

If whoever was in charge of this spaceship was not happy before, they definitely wouldn't be now that Lúcio stole a gun, held one of the crewmembers at gunpoint, basically took her hostage when he decided to lock himself with her in that pantry-like room, and acted like a terrorist would.

'Being dead would be worse.' Lúcio did his best to stay optimistic. Although he wasn't sure if he would live long enough to laugh about this situation in the future.

When the door was forced to slide open with such a loud shrieking noise that Lúcio was able to hear it, and a man who's markings glowed a dark red color walked in, looking so angry that the woman Lúcio had been holding at gunpoint felt the urge to stand between them, Lúcio started thinking that maybe death was the smallest of his problems.

This man was huge, towering over Lúcio by at least a foot and a half, unlike the other people Lúcio had seen, the man's black jumpsuit was sleeveless and had golden lines along the neck and waist, it also looked like it was not supposed to be form-fitting, yet it was. The man looked angry at first, the long markings across his cheeks eventually stopped glowing, but the color didn't change.

When the man started speaking, obviously trying to negotiate and get Lúcio to drop the gun, Lúcio rose his hands to stop him.

"I-" He left the gun on a shelf and his hands started moving. His signing as rushed as his vocal speech. "I can't hear you. Eu não posso te ouvir."

Would trying to communicate in three different human languages make any difference when, considering the situation, the four-armed man with markings on his face that had been red but now changed to a greenish yellow, in front of him was clearly not human? Lúcio didn't know. But by how round the man's eyes went before he frowned and motioned for the woman between them to move away, frowning even deeper when she didn't, he definitely understood something.

"I really don't want trouble," Lúcio signed and spoke out loud, keeping his hands from shaking was hard.

The more he spoke, the more the other's expression gave away that Lúcio was already in big trouble. Especially when the man motioned for the woman to leave the pantry and this time she did, and the man did too, leaving Lúcio.

Alone in the room once again, Lúcio leaned against the shelves, taking deep breaths to calm himself and analyze the situation.

He was supposed to be dead. But instead Lúcio was in a strange, maybe even hostile spaceship with people that were not human, who Lúcio couldn't hear because his hearing device had been destroyed by one of them when said person crushed Lúcio's skull against a wall, and who might be as dangerous as the one who tried —more like succeeded— to kill him.

That was too much to process in such a short amount of time. But that didn't stop Lúcio from forcing himself to suck it up and think straight.

Yes, he was supposed to be dead. But he wasn't, and as far as Lúcio knew that meant that he had a second chance in life, and he was not going to waste it waiting to see if he would be killed or not. He still had the gun with him.

Lúcio would stay there, for now, wait for an opening, maybe find smaller ships, somewhere where he could send an SOS to Athena, whatever that could tell his crew that he was fine and maybe even get him the hell out of there. He would also do his best to avoid giving anyone reasons if they didn't have them already, to try and finish the job the other guy didn't get to.


	3. Nightmares and omnics

The documents that had been on top of his desk were now scattered around the floor along with the desk lamp, which had fallen with a loud thud when Akande kicked his desk some feet away from where it usually was. Akande then tried to punch the wall, but Angela stopped him by hanging from both his right arms when he rose them to throw the punch.

"This is not helping!" Angela pointed at Mei, who sank further on her seat, visibly affected by everything that had happened in just minutes.

The only thing stopping Akande from making a hole in the wall was not Angela. He could have easily pushed her away and done what he had meant to. It was the fact that it wouldn't change anything, just add a possible window to his office that Akande did not want.

"What happened in there?" Angela's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Why-"

"The Terran spoke to me."

"What?"

"They spoke to me," Akande repeated. "They spoke a foreign language. Then spoke Venterran, both speech, and sign language."

"What?!" It was frustrating Akande that Angela just would say that. "That is impossible!"

"It's true." Mei's voice was merely a whisper. She sank further into her seat when both Akande and Angela's attention turned to her. "They spoke to me too. They're not evil, they just want to go home."

Giving his back to them, Akande glared at the yellowish map that took over the whole wall behind his desk. Taking the Terran back to their planet wasn't possible. They had been in a coma for two weeks before waking up and turning everything upside down in Akande's spaceship. They were now light years away from Terra Nova, and they did not have fuel to waste taking them back. Like it or not, the Terran would have to stay with them for an undefined amount of time.

"Call Moira, tell her we need to talk." Akande looked at Angela. "From now on, the Terran is under her care."

"But-"

"It's an order, doctor Ziegler," Akande didn't let her speak. "I trusted you the Terran and look what happened. We can't risk that happening again."

Angela's mouth opened and closed again. When Akande decided something there was no convincing him of changing his mind. She just nodded and sighed in defeat.

"I am glad you agree," Akande said, looking back at the map. "Now, accompany Miss Ling Zhou to her room, she's obviously had enough of this."

"And Angela-" Akande spoke again before they could leave. "-No one but me is allowed to speak to the Terran. Am I clear?"

"Yes, captain."

* * *

 

_The weight of debris over his torso wouldn't let him move. Lúcio tried and failed, ending up to lie down there, immobile, like in a vegetative state. A hard white light right above his eyes wouldn't let them open them, leaving him at the mercy of the murmurs around him, from which Lúcio could only differentiate two voices._

_"The building collapsed over them, it was terrible," a woman's voice said, sounding affected by what she was saying. "The mother and three children died there. Only the father and the older son made it out."_

_"The father passed away this morning," another voice, a man's, spoke this time. "And the boy won't survive the night if we don't do something."_

_"His flesh will heal, but most of his bones are broken, and his organs..." the woman's voice changed to a lower tone. "He won't make it through all the surgeries he needs."_

_A pause and Lúcio was left in complete silence. The weight on top of his seemed to disappear along with the ground under his body, a relieving numbness taking over._

_"Call Amari," the man spoke again. "Send her his files. Make him part of the cyborg program."_

_"Wait, no. Please no!"_

_The light blinding Lúcio turned off and Lúcio opened his eyes to be welcomed by complete darkness. His body started falling, being swallowed by the void in which he had been forcefully put. His arms flailed helplessly in all directions, trying to hold onto something, anything, that could stop the fall. But there was nothing to hold onto, just Lúcio and whatever was at the end of the fall._

_His body hit the ground as hard as the building had collapsed over him._

Lúcio's eyes snapped open and looked in all directions. There was not much to look at, either the wall or the probably bulletproof glass that kept him confined. Pushing himself to sit, Lúcio covered his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands against them until he was left seeing weird shapes behind his eyelids, silently praying that he would open his eyes and be somewhere else, preferably back in Mars with his friends to tell him that it had all just been a weird dream caused by watching the old alien movies too many times.

No matter how hard he prayed, when Lúcio opened his eyes, he was still in his cell in the spaceship. Lúcio sighed, his attention going to the man outside the cell.

"What a way to wake up," Jesse signed once he got Lúcio's attention. "Are you okay?"

"Just a nightmare." Lúcio shrugged, fingers moving dismissively.

"Those aren't pretty." Jesse pressed his lips together, making his face small. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do you want to tell me your name?" Lúcio's eyebrows arched at the man.

"Let's change the subject."

Snorting, Lúcio shook his head. Of all the people in that spaceship, Jesse was the one Lúcio liked the most. He wasn't sure if it was because he hadn't talked to anyone else in the three days he had been in the cell or because he actually liked Jesse. Lúcio could only describe Jesse as a four-armed —or more like three-armed considering one of his arms was a prosthetic— space cowboy who had a lot of stories that helped Lúcio kill time. The fact that Jesse knew sign language and was getting better with each conversation they had was a plus, along with the fact that Jesse couldn't give less of a fuck about his superior ordering that no one should speak to 'The Terran'.

"Can I get you anything?" Jesse asked.

Lúcio's fingers moved idly as he signed, "Water," before watching the other go get him a bottle.

Leaning back against the wall while sitting on the bed, Lúcio closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. He hadn't had a nightmare about the accident since he left Earth, maybe he was getting homesick? Lúcio didn't know. The only thing he wanted was to forget about the nightmare and try to be optimistic. Past is past and all that shit.

Some deity watching over him might have thought that was a good idea and decided to send Lúcio something to get his mind out of his own problems. When Lúcio opened his eyes, the dim light outside of the cell had turned red, giving away that an alarm had been set off. Lúcio frowned, this time it hadn't been him.

Lúcio stood and moved closer to the glass when Jesse came back, his brows furrowed and his movements rushed with nervousness.

"What's going on?" he asked out loud, wanting to make sure Jesse would know he was asking him.

Jesse looked at him and his expression changed to one that left it clear to Lúcio that whatever was going on had something to do with him.

"Jesse, tell me," Lúcio begged, pressing his face against the glass and making the most convincing puppy eyes a twenty-six years old man could.

Leaving the bottle aside, Jesse started signing. "I shouldn't tell you this." The movements of his fingers were rushed, clumsy. "But those machines the scouts brought back from your colony-"

Lúcio's face paled. He had been so worried about himself, so scared and shocked about finding life outside of Earth, that he had completely forgotten about the omnics that could have been left behind in the Skyline colony. Now it turned out that they were in the spaceship, and things would get ugly if Lúcio didn't get to them.

"You have to take me to them. If you don't take me to them, someone's going to die!" Lúcio flung out his hand into the word, making it larger than it needed to emphasize on just how serious this was.

He didn't mean it to seem like he was threatening Jesse. But if that's what made the other press his lower right hand on the panel so the glass would slide up and out of the way before handing him a gas mask, then Lúcio was thankful it did.

As Jesse guided him through multiple hallways and down two sets of stairs, no one seemed to notice or care that Lúcio was walking among them, they were too busy running in the opposite direction or carrying people to the medical bay. Lúcio gulped at the sight of someone's who's ribs had obviously been broken with enough strength to make two ribs pierce through the skin.

They walked past many other injured crewmen and women, and Lúcio had to resist the urge to go help or at least apologize on behalf of the omnics. But he had to get to them, calm them down and, most importantly, make sure no one hurt them.

Jesse opened the hangar doors like he had opened his cell. But Lúcio stopped him before Jesse could step in.

"Please, stay right here and don't let anyone come in," Lúcio signed with a determined frown.

"Are you getting enough oxygen?" Jesse looked actually worried. "You can't do anything against those machines, you're unarmed."

"Exactly. That's why I can fix this."

Without another word, Lúcio turned on his heel and took off. The hangar was full of piled up boxes, technology, and space aircraft in need of repairs. Lúcio felt like he was in a labyrinth. He was sure he wouldn't have found the omnics if it wasn't because of the man that was thrown through two stacks of boxes and who landed against one of the individual spaceship, the metal bowing and creaking under his weight.

It was captain Ogundimu —the man who gave the No one can speak to the Terran order— in the flesh. And for the looks of it, he and the omnics didn't get along.

Giving his back to the four-armed man and facing the omnics, Lúcio's hands darted forward as a clear signal for them to stop moving closer.

"Bastion, Orisa," he spoke, pointing at both of them before pointing at his own face. "Look at me."

He switched glances between captain Ogundimu and his friends until he noticed Orisa trying to look over his shoulder at the man. Lúcio tried to step closer, but her and Bastion's optic lenses glowed red as a warning that getting closer was not a good idea.

The omnics' optics darted from Lúcio to the man behind him, glaring menacingly at both of them menacingly. Lúcios eyes went round in both shock and confusion, Bastion and Orisa had their attitude —Bastion more than Orisa, usually—, but neither of them had ever been anything but friendly and curious towards those who they met.

Then Lúcio remembered that everything but his eyes and forehead was covered and that as smart as they could be, they were still omnics and they were programmed to recognize someone by looking at their face uncovered.

'We have to fix that,' Lúcio made a mental note for later.

"It's me, guys, Lúcio!" He took a deep breath and removed the mask from his face long enough for the omnics to see, their optics rotating with recognition. "I can't believe you didn't recognize me."

Their optics stopped glowing for a moment, but then Lúcio guessed that captain Ogundimu moved because they glared behind Lúcio and stepped forward.

"Eyes on me!" Lúcio raised his voice with a scolding tone. He then spoke in a lower tone. "You are safe."

The angry red didn't leave their lenses, but Lúcio could tell that him being there was helping. He smiled at them, stepping closer.

"No one will hurt you while I am here," Lúcio promised. "Let's step back so this gentleman can leave us alone, okay?"

Looking back at captain Ogundimu, Lúcio tilted his head and frowned in confusion. The man's markings were glowing an electric blue, his eyes were wide as he stared up at the omnics, then at Lúcio. Lúcio smiled to try and show that he could handle the situation before motioning for him to leave.

Once he was close enough to Orisa and Bastion, Lúcio offered his hands to them. Orisa took it right away, Bastion hesitated but, after some reassuring, ended up doing the same. Lúcio walked them away from where their fight with Ogundimu had taken place, hoping to find a place where he could sit them and calm them down.


	4. Mistakes have been made

Akande had two good reasons not to leave his office. Both were covered, one with a scarf that covered everything under the bridge of his nose, and the other with a makeshift bandage at his right upper arm's bicep's height.

It had been three hours since the fight in the hangar, but the throbbing pain in his arm reminded Akande of it with even the slightest movement.

What would his crew think if they found out about what had happened? First several of his men had been sent to handle the situation and had come back beaten by those machines. They had retreated, trusting that their captain could handle the situation as he had done so many times in seemingly worse situations. But Akande had made the mistake of believing that the fight against the Terran machines would be just like any of the other fights in which he had been involved. He had not considered for a moment that those machines would have the cognitive ability to predict his next move.

Underestimating his enemy's intelligence was what left him with a concerningly deep cut on his arm, and it would have been the last mistake that Akande would ever make if the Terran didn't come to the rescue.

The Terran —Now Akande knew that his name was Lúcio— didn't fight against the machines, he didn't even threaten them. All that Lúcio did was talk to them as if they were equals, even giving them names, and show them his face even though he knew that taking off the mask was dangerous and that he couldn't breathe like the crew did.

Witnessing what Akande could only describe as raw bravery and selflessness left Akande feeling an emotion that he couldn't name, a mixture of euphoria, fear, excitement, and confusion accompanied by a rapid heartbeat that made the markings on his face glow electric blue. A color that had no place in Akande Ogundimu's face.

An insistent knock on the door made Akande frown. He didn't like being interrupted while he analyzed the situations in which lives would be put in danger under his watch. But it seemed that every member of his crew had a radar that let them know when he was doing just that, and the need to interrupt invaded them.

Akande didn't wear his captain's jacket while on the ship, but the last thing he needed was someone seeing that he had been wounded in a fight that lasted less than ten minutes against machines made by a less evolved species than his own. He had to cover it and the only thing at hand was the jacket.

"Come on." Akande leaned back in his chair, the leather of his jacket squeezing around the wound.

The door didn't open. Instead, a cloud of purple-black smoke sneaked in from under the door, taking a physical shape on the chair right in front of Akande's desk.

Of all the people who might have come to see him, Moira was the one Akande had not been expecting to do so. Seeing the woman outside her lab was like finding a herd of stingpards, rare and unsettling.

"Akande." The way in which Moira was studying him made Akande's frown deepen. She obviously noticed that he was wearing more clothes than usual. "Has the heating in your office broken? I do not feel any change in temperature, perhaps you're sick?"

"Why are you here?" Akande sighed the questions. "If you need new lab subjects, you will have to wait. We are not landing until we have to get provisions, and that is two days from now."

"You implying that the subjects you brought for me from the Terran colony are already dead wounds me," there was no change in Moira's tone or expression. Akande knew he didn't wound her at all. "I am not here for more subjects. I am here to speak about the Terran."

Akande hated the way his interest peaked when Moira mentioned the Terran. But the way her eyes shine with knowledge left it clear that she knew stuff Akande didn't.

"Speak then," Akande successfully kept all the interest out of his voice. "What did you find out?"

Just like he did with his maps and documents, Moira was wary about her discoveries, writing them down on paper and keeping them away from any prying eyes instead of having them in a holopad like everyone else did with their important archives. Akande was the only one who knew she carried them on the inner pockets of her lab coat.

Moira handed him a pile of documents, and Akande grabbed them with his lower right arm so he could avoid moving the upper one and causing himself more pain. Unfolding one of the pages, Akande started reading through multiple annotations about foreign tissue found where organs' should be. It made Akande arch an eyebrow at Moira in confusion. Foreign tissue where organs should be? It didn't make sense.

Akande was disappointed to find that only that page talked about the subject. He then looked up at Moira. "Is that all? Did you find why there is foreign tissue?"

"I found everything I am allowed to find," Moira hummed. "If you would let me dissect the Terran-"

"No."

"It could be a vivisection."

"No way," Akande didn't even think about considering it. "You know what the council would do to me if I allowed that kind of procedures in my ship, and with a Terran? They would execute me or worse, they might send me to prison."

Akande was not going back to jail, much less for a Terran. He had already wasted eight years of his life there. If someone tried to sentence him to more years, too bad, Akande would die before going back.

What annoyed him most was the fact that the retaliation that allowing Moira to perform more risky procedures in the Terran would get him was not what had made him say no. It was now that Akande had thought about it, but both negative responses had been unthinking, instinctive, and he did not want to acknowledge why.

"Well, it seems that you have taken a decision," Moira's eyebrows raised and the right corner of her mouth stretched in disappointment as she stood. "Keep the notes, those are copies. The original ones are not leaving my laboratory."

Moira left just the way she had walked in. Akande spent the next two hours reading through her notes, paying attention to every little detail about the Terran. Most of the information had been got through interviews between Moira and the Terran that Akande had authorized.

'The subject is a twenty-six years old, masculine Terran who goes by the name of Lúcio Correia Dos Santos. He has been seen speaking three languages, which he calls English (Venterran), Portuguese (Unknown), and ASL (Acronym? Must ask later). He has multiple scars on his body for which he has refused to give an explanation. His hair is tangled or woven into something that the subject calls 'dreadlocks' or 'dreads', he says he can undo them at will.'

Akande left them back on the desk. This information was new, but not important and still, he wanted to know more about the Terran. Akande let our a weary sigh while rubbing his face with both hands. He had just had a long day, that was why the color of his markings didn't change, why he was so interested in the human, that was all, just the need to distract himself caused by the shock the fight had left him with. Everything would be back to normal once Akande got the rest his body was begging him for.

* * *

 

There was no getting Bastion to calm down. Lúcio had tried talking to him, hugging him, everything to try and make both him and Orisa forget about what Lúcio had just told them. Telling them about what had happened at the colony was a mistake, now both omnics were sad, not just because they had not been there to help, but also because their animal friends were not there with them.

"Maybe they are here," Orisa signed with her naive optimism.

Lúcio didn't have the heart to tell them that there was little to no chance that Gizmo and Ganymede could breathe in the spaceship, that the crew breathed carbon dioxide and that being small animals, they could have died the moment they were brought into the spaceship. That would destroy them.

"I am sure that they are okay," Lúcio was grateful that he was better at lying in sign language than out loud. He forced a smile for both omnics. "I will find them, I promise."

Being able to hear Bastion's high pitched whimpers was breaking Lúcio's heart. Bastion loved Ganymede, that bird was the omnic's reason to live, the closest thing Bastion had to a family since he gained free will.

Lúcio was going to check every corner of the spaceship if needed to find out what unopened to the omnics' pets. But that was going to be hard if he couldn't hear. He also needed to find a way to calm the omnics down, make them think about something else so they would let him leave.

"You won't believe what happened." The way in which Lúcio's fingers moved wider and faster than needed as he signed caught the omnics' attention. "My hearing aids broke. I wonder if someone could help me…"

That was enough for the two of them to start searching everywhere while making sure not to lose sight of Lúcio. Lúcio was grateful that neither of them asked how he broke it, telling them that he had been killed by someone who might or might not be part of the same crew who's doctor brought him back somehow was not going to help.

After the omnics gave him all the useful things they could find, Lúcio sat on the floor and got down to work. Making a new sound processor was not easy considering that Orisa and Bastion had no concept of personal space or intention to get away from it. Luckily for Lúcio, he was used to having others around when he tried to work, it helped him to concentrate and he had even missed it to an extent, it made Lúcio remember better times.

"Let's try it." Lúcio smiled up at the omnics before putting it on.

The sound was not as clear as it would be with a device made by a professional, but Lúcio was sure he would not have trouble handling the echo as long as he could get something better in the near future.

After getting the omnics to agree to stay in the hangar and behave while he was gone, Lúcio went looking for Jesse, more than sure that the man would be able to help him. After all, the space cowboy had bragged about how he knew the spaceship better than anyone else.

* * *

 

"You said that you know this spaceship better than you know yourself!" Lúcio huffed, his face softening when Jesse jumped into place. The man was still getting used to Lúcio suddenly snapping at him instead of calmly getting his attention and then snapping at him.

"I told you I know from first to the third floor better than I know myself." Jesse looked down at the small screen on his prosthetic. "I am as lost as you in here, if not more."

The fourth floor was the higher-ups' floor. That's what Jesse had told Lúcio. The captain and his closest crewmembers had their rooms and workstations there so no one would bother them. But that did not stop Lúcio from climbing the stairs when Jesse's screen showed that there were two small sources of heat somewhere upstairs.

Tracking them was hard because neither of them knew where they were going. They ended up in dead ends more than once.

"Can I ask you a question?" Lúcio spoke again, tired of the silence."

"Sure, ask away."

"Those markings on your face… What are they?"

Jesse's hand went up and he touched his temple, running his thumb over the marks before looking down at Lúcio with a smile and a lifted brow. "Do you want to touch it?"

The markings were not some kind of bioluminescent body paint like Lúcio had theorized at first. They were a coarse membranous texture that protruded only enough to be noticed when touching them.

"What is their purpose? Why do yours don't change color?"

Lúcio's never-ending curiosity made Jesse's smile even more. People didn't show that much curiosity about others' biology anymore, it was considered impolite, but Jesse could tell Lúcio didn't make those questions with any other intention but to know more.

Jesse's markings always stayed a red color, and Lúcio was curious about why.

"My species is an empathetic one, we are not supposed to hide our feelings," Jesse explained as he looked down at the screen on his prosthetic when it lightened up. "Our 'markings', as you called them, change color when someone doesn't express their emotions. We call them protuberances. Mine don't change color because I don't hide my feelings."

Lúcio was able to prove that just moments later, when Jesse stopped walking and his brows knitted together, lips pressed on a straight line as his Adam apple bobbed. Lúcio could have sworn that Jesse's face even paled.

"What's wrong?"

"I know where your machines' pets are," he said, not looking away from the screen.

Lúcio stood on his tip toes to see the screen because Jesse was holding his upper left arm up too high for Lúcio to perk comfortably. It showed two small sources of heat down the hallways the opposite way they had been heading to. Lúcio turned on his heel and rushed forward, Jesse getting to stop him before he could knock on the door that has a small golden sign that read 'laboratory'.

"No no no, Lúcio, stop!"

Having four hands grab him by the armpits and lift him up to step back and away from the door, Lúcio looked back at Jesse and glared until the man put him down.

"Why not?" he asked, fixing the white tank top he had been given to wear before pointing at Jesse's prosthetic arm. "It says that they are here!"

Before Jesse could give him an explanation, the lab's door slid open and Lúcio was facing the woman that had been sent to interview him the day before. Lúcio stepped forward and this time Jesse didn't try to stop him.

"Hello. Moira, right?" the woman's only answer was arching an eyebrow at him. "I think you have some animals that belong to my friends."

Moira stared at Lúcio for a solid minute, then her eyes went to the handmade device around his ear before looking at Jesse. "Why is the Terran not in his cell?" she spoke as if Lúcio was not right in front of her.

As Jesse stuttered to answer the captain's right-hand woman, Lúcio didn't hesitate to push past Moira. He was not here to talk to her, he was here to get Gizmo and Ganymede.

Lúcio's knees almost gave up under him when a wave of relief washed over him at the sight of both animals in cages, but alive and looking like they had not been hurt. Gizmo when crazy when he spotted Lúcio, barking and getting so excited that he ended up peeing in the cage.

"Hi, baby!" Lúcio squealed at the dog, who continued to bark and whine as Lúcio got closer and petted him through the bars. "I am so glad you two are okay. You scared me, yes you did."

After shamelessly cooing at the dog and bird, Lúcio turned around to look at Moira, who was writing something down —more notes about Terran behavior— while also wrinkling her nose in disgust at the mess Gizmo made; and Jesse, who just looked curious and confused about the animals in the cages.

Motioning for Jesse to come closer, Lúcio ended up pulling the man to stand beside him. "This is Gizmo," he introduced Jesse to the dog. "He doesn't bite, and will let you pet him if you let him smell your hand first."

Jesse was hesitant, but curiosity got the best of him and he followed Lúcio's directions, letting Gizmo smell one of his hands before carefully petting the dog. Lúcio frowned at the sight of a shaved spot on the back of Gizmo's neck, the dog didn't have that back in the Skyline colony, Lúcio would have noticed.

"You did something to them."

Moira raised her eyebrows but grinned, Lúcio didn't like it at all. "Of course I did. How would I miss the chance to experiment on such rare subjects?"

The way in which she spoke about them as if they were nothing but things she could freely test with made Lúcio's blood boil. He stood right in front of her, pointing an accusatory finger at her.

"You had no right to do that!"

"I didn't," Moira agreed, the grin never leaving her face. "I had no right to experiment on them, just like you have no right to stay in this spaceship. Yet, here we are."

Lúcio was sure that the anger he was feeling was obvious in his body language because Jesse's hands rested on his shoulders and biceps, squeezing them to have a good grip on Lúcio just in case the Terran tried to do anything stupid.

"Lúcio, they are fine," Jesse reminded him. "Let's just leave. Your machines are waiting, right?"

Taking a deep breath, Lúcio reminded himself that starting a fight with a woman who might as well have fucking tentacles for all he knew was not a good idea, especially not when she was the spaceship's captain's right-hand woman. The last thing Lúcio needed was trouble with captain Ogundimu.

He would have calmed down just fine if it wasn't because Moira had to chime in.

"My subjects are not going anywhere."

"They are coming with me," Lúcio stated with gritted teeth.

Moira leaned forward to be at eye level with Lúcio and make him conscious of just how much shorter he was, her lips pulling into a condescending smile.

"And what are you, little Terran, going to do when I don't let you take them?"


End file.
